During the so-called ‘dark valley’, or the fifteen-year war in Asia (1931-1945), the Japanese industry of newsreels experienced extraordinary growth, particularly fostered by war in China from 1937. This paper examines the international circulation of the footage shot by Japanese operators about the conflict in Asia, particularly focusing on their distribution in Spanish cinemas. On the one hand, this research will cast light into the global phenomenon of migration of images in a moment in which cinema was becoming a modern propaganda weapon. On the other hand, this presentation will trace the journey of images from the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo to the end of the Pacific War, and how they eventually reached Spain. It will also assess how these images were appropriated along the way, and how their Spanish interpretations of the events in Asia shifted according to the changing interests in Spain.

Speaker Biography

Marcos Centeno-Martín

Dr Marcos Centeno-Martín is Associate Professor in Film and Media at the University of Valencia, Spain, and a research associate at the School of Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London, United Kingdom. He was previously a Lecturer in Film Studies for the Department of Japan and Korea and convened the MA programme in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural at SOAS. After his appointment at SOAS, Dr Centeno-Martín was a Lecturer at Birkbeck College, United Kingdom, where he acted as the Director of the Japanese Programme. He has also been research associate at the Nissan Institute for Japanese Studies, Waseda University, and the University of Oxford, and a guest lecturer at Nanzan University, Japan.

Dr Centeno-Martín’s research interests revolve around Japanese documentary film, war-time memory, image theory, transnationality, and representation of minorities. He is the PI for TRAMEVIC: Transnational War-time Memories in East Asian Visual Culture funded by Generalitat Valenciana, coordinator of TRADIASIA (Transculturality and Diversity in East Asia). He has received grants from the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University, United States, and has led projects with funding from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Daiwa, the Japan Foundation, the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT).

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Marcos Centeno-Martín is Associate Professor in Film and Media at the University of Valencia, Spain, and a research associate at the School of Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London, United Kingdom.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

Bookmark